Interview with Edith Gorrell Mitchell

Hello, this is Doug Washburn for the Harford County Public Library. Today is the 25th of April 2006. I am with a Harford Living Treasure, Edith Gorrell Mitchell of Churchville. Mrs. Mitchell is a life-long resident of the county. Annette Bevans of Churchville submitted the nomination. Mrs. Mitchell, thank you for taking time with me today to provide an oral history for our county citizens to enjoy.
EM You're welcome.
DW Good morning. So we always start with when you were born and where.
EM I was born in Baltimore Hospital in 1924, but have always lived here in Churchville the rest of my life.
DW Your family lived in Churchville?
EM Yes.
DW O.k. Have you been here multiple generations? Were your grandparents?
EM Yes my grandfather and my father and then me up on Rt. 136. That's where we lived, and my home is still up there. I still own it.
DW Oh yeah?
EM Yes.
DW Is that a farm?
EM It's a small farm.
DW A small farm? What was the crop that your parents and grandparents grew?
EM Well, I know my grandfather had a tomato-canning house right along Rt. 136. I guess they raised them. I don't remember too much what they raised, but I guess corn and tomatoes and things like that.
DW And was it Gorrell's Canning House?
EM Yes.
DW That was the name of it?
EM Yes.
DW What years did that operate?
EM I think it might have been before I was born, because I don't remember it operating.
DW Oh, you don't?
EM No. I remember the canning house being there, but I don't remember it operating, because my mother always said that she and daddy worked in it. And that was back before 1924.
DW So your parents would have been born around the turn of the century, so your grandfather would have been living in the late 1800's.
EM That's right and my father was born before the 1900's. I use to have it figured out, but I haven't done it lately.
DW So the canning house was operational just after the turn of the century.
EM That's right.
DW And where did you go to school?
EM I went to Churchville, a one-room school in Churchville for the first grade and then the second through the seventh, the new school, (it was new to us) on Rt. 155. And then I went to Bel Air High School.
DW And was that first school called Jefferson?
EM No, it was Churchville Elementary.
DW The one you went to the first grade in? That was still called Churchville?
EM Yes.
DW Where was that located?
EM Well, it's now where the Churchville Presbyterian Church has a building. And I think Jefferson was down Carson's Run.
DW Yes, it was. But I didn't realize that…
EM That is was in Churchville. That one in Churchville was two-room. It had one through maybe four and then five, six and seven in the other room. There were two rooms to it.
DW That's interesting.
EM You know we were in with other classes.
DW Sure. How far up Rt. 136 was the home place? Was it on the north side of Churchville?
EM No, it' on this side.
DW Oh, it's on the south side of Churchville, between here and Churchville.
EM I'd say a mile and a half, maybe.
DW O.k.
EM I'm not very good with miles. [Laughter]
DW That's o.k. And when you were young, what did you do for entertainment on the farm?
EM There wasn't much to do. At first we didn't even have a car, so we mostly stayed home. Of course we went to church on Sunday, and I went to visit my cousins and things like that, but we didn't get too far without a car. And I remember when we finally did get a car; my father and his brother owned a car together. And then we had to set aside certain nights a week to have the car. [Laughter]
DW That's very good. Did you have games that you played to entertain yourself?
EM I don't remember. I was an only child, so that's why I went to my cousins' so much. And they lived in Churchville, so I had to walk up there.
DW Were your mother and father also farmers, as well as your grandparents?
EM My father was from 1939 until he got sick and he couldn't farm any longer. So then he went to work in Aberdeen.
DW What do you remember about the schoolhouses? Do you remember your teachers?
EM Yes. Do you want me to?
DW Do you have names?
EM Yes, my first grade was Miss Hayes and the second one was Mrs. Hacket. The third I'm lost on, I can't remember.
DW That's o.k.
EM Do you want me to go on?
DW If you can remember more.
EM And the fourth was Sue Stevenson. The fifth was Laura Hawkins and the sixth was Marie Kelly, and the seventh was Mr. Hacket. That's as far as the Churchville School went.
DW So the new school in Churchville was a multi grade school because it had multi teachers.
EM Yes, it started in the second grade and then each grade had a room.
DW Oh, o.k. So that was a big change from a two-room.
EM Oh yes, very much.
DW How about when you got a little older as a teenager. Did you start to find more things to entertain you?
EM Yes, we went to ballgames in Aberdeen. I think it was softball, and of course I went to school functions. I went to Bel Air High School.
DW Which building was Bel Air High School in at that time?
EM The one on Gordon Street.
DW The one that the Administration just abandoned?
EM No, the one next to it. That was the elementary school, the one that they abandoned, wasn't it?
DW You know I honestly don't know.
EM I think there was an elementary school and then there was a high school. And I think the Board of Education took the elementary school over. I can't be real sure, but I think that's what it was. And I don't know what that building is now, that other building, if it's even still there. It's been a long time since I've been up there. [Laughter]
DW Well, how did you meet your husband?
EM I knew him all my life. And I was friendly with his sister, ran around with his sister. And then later he starting dating me, and that was it. [Laughter] And that's a picture of him up there.
DW Was his family from around here?
EM Right up Snake Lane.
DW Right up Snake Lane.
EM That's why we lived here. He never wanted to leave Snake Lane.
DW And his grandparents and such were from the county?
EM Oh yes.
DW I see that you got married at Smith Chapel.
EM Yes.
DW That's on Route 22, Churchville Road.
EM That's right.
DW Do you know any of the history of that church?
EM I know Smith Chapel and Calvary, where I go and Cokesbury were all on one circuit. The preacher had three churches. And that's about all I know about it. And then in later years, Smith's Chapel wanted to go on their own, so now its just Calvary and Cokesbury. Do you know where Cokesbury is?
DW Abingdon, I believe.
EM That's right.
DW O.k.
EM I don't mean to be questioning you, but I just wanted you to be sure because our minister still has the service.
DW Oh, that's interesting.
EM And it's a lady minister.
DW Do you know any of the history of Calvary Church? Like when it was built.
EM I should know, but I can't remember the dates now. But I know that the older people built it. And it's a beautiful stone church and I always marveled at the big stone that were up high in the church. How they got them up there with no machinery or anything, you know what I mean.
DW Sure.
EM And it's pretty. It's a pretty, old church. I guess it was in the 18 something.
DW When you went to Bel Air High School, what was your transportation there?
EM My uncle worked in a bank in Bel Air and I rode to Bel Air with him and then walked back to the school and came back to the bank in the evening and rode with him.
DW Was that by choice or was there bus transportation available?
EM There was bus transportation, but my parents thought… Well, my uncle always said he had taken his daughter to Bel Air and he would take me to save the money, because you had to pay for bus fare then.
DW So it wasn't public transportation.
EM No, you paid. And you see the car my uncle drove, was our car too. [Laughs] You know the one I was telling you about. So he took his daughter, but she graduated a year before I went into the high school. So, he took her and then he took me. He took other riders but he always saved a place for me.
DW I see that you worked at the Aberdeen Proving Ground.
EM Yes, during the war they were calling for help. So I went down and helped. In the meantime I had gone down to a secretarial school in Baltimore for six months. And they wanted me to work in a lawyer's office in Baltimore. And the Proving Ground was calling for help, so I went down there and took a test and passed it. I got a job and worked there until I got married in 1947.
DW Do you remember anything about that time period? You know, rationing.
EM Rationing? Yes, I think gas was rationed and butter. If you bought a pound of butter, you got the coloring thing in with the butter. And then you had to mix the butter up [Laughter] with the yellow stuff. That's the way we had butter.
DW So the butter was basically clear?
EM Yes. If you wanted to eat it that way, you could, but my mother always mixed it up.
DW Did it change the taste or just the looks?
EM No, just the looks. It keeps the butter yellow.
DW Wow, I never heard that before.
EM Oh, haven't you? Well, that's one thing I do remember about the rationing, because I never liked to work the butter.
DW Anything else about the Proving Ground? Were you working someplace where they had, I don't know, there was a big computer there, for instance.
EM No.
DW No?
EM No computers then. I worked in the firing records section. When the men did firing, they wrote down all their statistics and then we typed them up. The transportation into the Proving Ground was a little train. It started at the Pennsylvania Railroad track and ran into the Proving Ground. A lot of people were from Aberdeen and I rode it from Aberdeen. I rode to Aberdeen with my father because he worked down there then. I rode that train in and then I rode it out in the evening and then met my father to come home.
DW What did your dad do on the Proving Ground?
EM He wasn't on the Proving Ground. He worked for an oil company in Aberdeen.
DW Oh, o.k. Was that an oil company that's still in business?
EM Well, it was Morgan's and now it's Farrell's, Farrell Oil Company. I know you've seen the trucks probably on the road.
DW Yes mam.
EM It's located in Aberdeen now. But daddy was a bookkeeper at Morgan's. And Mr. Morgan just died a few months ago, and he was in his nineties.
DW Oh, wow. Now when you were an adult, and you were looking for entertainment, did Churchville have entertainment or did you have to go to Aberdeen or Bel Air for that?
EM We went to the movies either in Bel Air, Aberdeen, or Havre de Grace. And then there was that drive-in movie there in Churchville, but I don't know when that came here. But we didn't go to that too often.
DW I think that was called the Big "M", wasn't it?
EM The little restaurant was, and the drive-in was right behind it.
DW Did that always have the same name that you know of?
EM Yes.
DW After the war was over, did you continue to work at Aberdeen?
EM No, I left. The war was over in '45, wasn't it? Anyway, I worked there until '47. And then I was engaged to be married, and my husband-to-be didn't want me to work, so I quit. And we lived up the road here about a half a mile and we had two girls. 1950 and '53 they were born and in '53 we moved down here. So, that's as far as I've gone.
DW And this is a farm?
EM A part of his farm is up the road too because his father left it to him. We have both places. And the little place up on Route 136, I still have it.
DW And what kind of farming did you do here?
EM Well when we first moved down here, we raised chickens and sold eggs. And we had strawberries and raspberries and then of course he planted tomatoes and corn. And then in later years, he planted soybean. And that is what my son-in-law is still doing. But we don't have the berries or anything any more, or the chickens. But when my husband got sick, he had caught something. Doug worked at the Proving Ground and when he retired, he took over here. And he lives in Pennsylvania, but he comes down here every day. It's not too far; it's in Stewartstown.
DW Sure.
EM It's not too far up there.
DW How about other things in the area? Let's see, we're not too far from Aldino. They have an airport.
EM That's right.
DW Did you use to see lots of airplanes coming and going?
EM Not too many. We use to hear them from the Proving Ground, but they don't have too many down there now, I don't think. We hear more helicopters than anything else here. And then we have quarry. Did you hear that quarry working?
DW Oh yes.
EM Well we have, that is very loud sometimes. About two or three days a week they blast and they do a lot of blasting and this house shakes pretty hard. But so far it's still here. I think it's over a hundred years old.
DW This house?
EM Yes. I know it is. The dates are imprinted in some steps, but I think the steps are back under here now, because we built that room on. And then you asked me about entertainment. Of course we all went to church and we had activities at the church that we attended.
DW So did you farm for the rest of your life? Did you ever go back to work?
EM Oh yes, I worked at Walter G. Coale in Churchville for eighteen years. I started in 1968 and finished in 1986. I worked as a bookkeeper and thoroughly enjoyed it.
DW Well good. That's a very old business in the community.
EM Yes it is. In fact they were my cousins. And they wanted me to come to work for them but I didn't want to go to work until my girls were old enough to take care of themselves. So I went to work when Peggy went to college. I wanted to help her out a little, so that is what I did.
DW I saw that on your write-up. I see that that business is more than a hundred years old.
EM Yes it is.
DW What was that back in the old days?
EM It was a grocery store and a farm business, farm machinery.
DW O.k., so they still sell tractors today.
EM Yes, they still sell farm machinery and industrial machinery. And the last one of the Coale's is now in an assistant living home and she is my first cousin and I still keep in touch with her, of course.
DW How about other old businesses in the area? Were they're mills or creameries or anything like that that you remember?
EM There was a creamery in Churchville when I went to elementary school because we went over there one day to see how it worked. But of course that closed a good while ago. And there was a mill, well there still is a mill on Route 136. But I don't think they have too much business except for cat food and all that kind of thing. Because the cow business is done around here.
DW It was a ground mill?
EM You took your things to the mill, and they ground it. I mean my husband use to take corn, barley [Interviewee deletes: and chicken feed] up there to have it ground. And then they added the nutrients with it. And that's been since 1953, I mean since then he took it up there. But now Doug still stops there and buys things, but it's just small things. They use to have fertilizer and they gave that up too. Now we get our fertilizer at Whiteford.
DW Oh yes.
EM They deliver it to you, because he has already spread a good bit this year. And then there's a country store, did you see it right out here at the end of the road?
DW No mam, I did not notice it.
EM Well, there is a small store and she just sells milk and all kinds of things. And then she sells knitting supplies, craft supplies and things like that.
DW Has that always been a store?
EM Yes.
DW For as long as you remember?
EM Yes. I remember one time my husband said it burned down. Everybody got upset because everybody dealt there, you know. But they rebuilt it and then people have taken it over during the last few years. A man by the name of Dennis Caudill owns it now, he and his wife. And then of course I was talking about the quarry.
DW What kind of a quarry is that, do you know?
EM Stone.
DW Just a stone quarry.
EM And they're blasting to get more stone out. I think there is stone under this house, the way it shakes. [Laughter] And they always said it was a ridge of stone through here. And if you look behind these houses across the road, there's a great big berm that they had built so people can't see down in that quarry. But that's just been recently. And I know people move here and then they complain about the quarry, but they knew it before they moved.
DW Sure.
EM My husband never fussed about the quarry. He said they did us some good deeds, which they did because one time they wanted to build a trailer park out here along the corner of Snake Lane and Route 136. So the quarry bought the land so they couldn't build the trailer park.
DW How long has the quarry been there?
EM It came there in the 1930's because I remember we got electricity down Route 136 when the quarry was coming. That was in the 1930's, my mother use to say. I remember it too partly.
DW Sure.
EM Because we had to plant.
DW How about a phone. Do you remember when you got a telephone?
EM Yes, we got a phone in 1939.
DW So that was after electricity.
EM Yes, because we didn't have a phone where we lived, and when we moved to the house where I lived in last, up there, there was a phone there and we just kept it. My mother liked the phone. We lived in a little house next door to the big house and whenever she had to make a phone call, she had to go down to the big house. And she had a couple of sisters in Churchville that she wanted to talk to every now and then, and that's what she would do. It wasn't bad and it was an old phone, you know those boxes with a phone in it?
DW Crank?
EM Crank kind, that's right.
DW And so you had an operator.
EM Yes, that's right you got the operator to get your number.
DW Was that somebody that you all knew well?
EM Yes, everybody knew the operator.
DW What was her name?
EM Well one of them was Hilda Scott and then my husband's sister was one of them, Dora Mitchell. That's the only two I remember.
DW And do you remember where that telephone office was?
EM Yes, it was in a big house. Do you know where Doctor Street's veterinary place is now?
DW No, I don't.
EM Well, it's up there in Churchville to the left, and then the house was beyond it, but they took the house down.
DW Sure.
EM I remember going in there because when I went to visit my cousin, Margaret Coale, we would over to the telephone exchange because she knew the operators. We watched how they worked it and everything, sticking the plugs in the wall and all that. Yes, that's what we did.
DW Hatch boards.
EM I thought that was real smart, to know how to do that. [Laughter] Now we carry the phone around with us.
DW Yes mam.
EM That's right, a lot of changes.
DW And we always like to discuss those. Certainly in your eighty some years, you've probably seen a lot of good changes and a lot of bad.
EM Yes I have.
DW How about things for the better?
EM Well, I think they're all in a way for the better, especially the cell phones. I don't know much about them. I don't have a cell phone, but my girls do. And they're very handy, too. And I like the T.V., of course. That's what keeps me company. And I still use the radio now and then. If I can't get to church on Sunday because it's early in the morning and I just can't get going that early. So I listen to Oak Grove Service on Sunday. Do you know where Oak Grove is?
DW Close to the college, isn't it?
EM Yes, right there at Schuck's corner, across from McDonald's.
DW Do you remember your first radio?
EM Yes, I do. A man that was a friend of one of my aunt's brought us a radio that I think he had built in Baltimore and he brought it out to us. And then we had a Gloritone, that was the one we bought, but I can't remember what year it would have been. I was pretty young and I would sit close to them to hear them.
DW Now was this before electricity or after?
EM Before. Yes, I remember when electricity was put in our house. We still lived in that little house that I was talking about so that was before 1939.
DW O.k.
EM We moved down into the other one in '39.
DW How about changes in the county that you don't care for?
EM Well, some of them I don't understand but they're all right. I mean you have to go forward with things. I know when they started talking about land preservation, you know, agriculture. My husband was all for it. We have all of our land in the agricultural preservation.
DW That's great.
EM He always said he didn't want houses planted on his farm. [Laughter] So that's why I still have it. I guess I really don't know how long it lasts, but I know it's the rest of my life, but I don't know how much longer. The girls and their husbands know what to do with it. I know we had to go to a lot of council meetings to make sure everything was all right when we put it in the preservation.
DW Sure.
EM We put the farm up the road in first and that was with the state. But then we wanted to do this one down here and we did it with the county, which was a better deal. They pay you so much each year for twenty years. So I'm still getting money from the county for this land.
DW Wonderful.
EM It is good. [Laughter] It helps keep the farm going.
DW Yes mam. Well, anything else you'd like to tell us about life in the earlier years, or any memories?
EM I can't think of too many, we just didn't go a whole lot, you know. Well, in the first place we didn't have the money. That's always the first thing, I guess. As the years went on, we got into better shape, you know and we could do things. I was never one to run around a whole lot, but I did like to go to the movies and things like that. Of course, my husband was a farmer and he sort of stuck to home and he took care of his parents until they passed away. I think one of them died in 1962 and the other one in '67. My parents died in '66 and '87. My father died in '87. He was in a nursing home for a year and a half in Cecil County and I had to run over there pretty often to see him.
DW You mentioned the movies a couple of times, do you remember the movies that you enjoyed the most?
EM Yes, Gone with the Wind.
DW Oh yeah?
EM I went to Baltimore to see that and I was so tickled. It was at the Hippodrome, I think. I went with my aunt and uncle and my cousin. When my aunt was walking down the aisle, she said I just feel like I'm going to the opera.
DW [Laughs]
EM I can remember that and I tell my cousin that every once in a while. She laughs and says, "yes I remember that too". So that shows we didn't get to Baltimore too often back then. But we did have people that lived in Baltimore, aunts and uncles, and my daddy went there pretty often to see them. I love those birds and they sing every day for me. When I moved down here, there weren't too many birds. And this place they were singing early in the morning and I told my husband I was glad that they moved here. But things have to go on and I lost him in 2000. He was a very good husband.
DW You are very lucky and it sounds like you had a very nice life.
EM I did.
DW Good.
EM I didn't go far and I stayed in my hometown. And everybody says don't talk about anybody in Churchville, cause they're all related. [Laughter] So, I try not to say anything about them. Of course you do know your neighbors.
DW Sure, especially when you've been here for eighty some years.
EM I know there is a new family that moved over here the year my husband died and he comes over here once in a while and ask me things about my husband. He says I wish I could have moved here before he passed away. I said well I wish you could have too, but that didn't work out. My husband liked to talk a lot and he would go to different farmers every morning and see how they were doing and tell them how he was doing, and then he would come back and go to work. That was his routine. But that was all right. They all exchanged their tales, you know. I remember he always went down to the Adams. Do you know them?
DW No mam.
EM Well they were farmers but they kind of quit some of it now, but he always went there. He talked to a couple of young fellows. One was Brad Milton and the other one was Tommy Harman and he told them a lot about produce farming, because that's what my husband did for many years. Now they each have a produce stand. Harman's was up on Route 22 and Brad's is right up here on Asbury Road. So, some of his knowledge is going on.
DW Wonderful.
EM That's about it as far as I know.
DW O.k. Well, we just try to collect as much Harford County history as we can.
EM Yes, I know.
DW I appreciate your time.
EM Well, I don't know whether I knew too much.
DW Well, you helped locate the businesses and certainly the first school. That was new information.
EM Yes, I knew them. Most of the times I walked to school and that Trinity Road, if the snow came, they plowed one side of it. I had to walk up there from Churchville to there and I always had to get up on the snow banks when a car would go by. And I always went to school in snowy time with wet legs. I had boots but they didn't come to the knees and sometimes the snowdrifts were that deep.
DW Yes mam.
EM So those are things to remember. And the stores in Churchville, now I was talking about Coale's, they weren't always on that corner. They had a store up the road where the Churchville Presbyterian Church had [is now]. It was a long, narrow building and they lived up there and they had the store downstairs. They moved to the corner…
[Side 2 of tape]
DW O.k., we've gone backwards in time and there's nothing wrong with that.
EM Well, it just came to me that they were in another store and they moved down on the corner. They had the new building in there, so they built a parts department and then they had their grocery store and then they lived in part of the downstairs and had the whole upstairs to live. There were three of those Coales, Mitchell, Francis and Margaret and Margaret is the one who is still there. She was a Living Treasure about a year or so back. She got her knowledge in there, too.
DW Very good.
EM She told me that somebody came in and interviewed her.
DW I don't remember doing hers so it must have been somebody else.
EM Well, it was October of '04 because she's been out there over a year in the home. Before she went into the home, she was chosen. And of course Mitchell and Francis are deceased. She still owns that property. [missing dialogue] She still has her senses and she knows all that's going on out there. I don't think there is anything else I should tell you.
DW O.k. That's fine. We always like to give you a little time to think.
EM Well, that's what I'm doing. I did think about it what I was going to tell you. Anyway, I guess that's it.
DW I'm going to say thank you very much for your time and appreciated hearing your story and I appreciated the new information you've given us.

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Transcript

Hello, this is Doug Washburn for the Harford County Public Library. Today is the 25th of April 2006. I am with a Harford Living Treasure, Edith Gorrell Mitchell of Churchville. Mrs. Mitchell is a life-long resident of the county. Annette Bevans of Churchville submitted the nomination. Mrs. Mitchell, thank you for taking time with me today to provide an oral history for our county citizens to enjoy.
EM You're welcome.
DW Good morning. So we always start with when you were born and where.
EM I was born in Baltimore Hospital in 1924, but have always lived here in Churchville the rest of my life.
DW Your family lived in Churchville?
EM Yes.
DW O.k. Have you been here multiple generations? Were your grandparents?
EM Yes my grandfather and my father and then me up on Rt. 136. That's where we lived, and my home is still up there. I still own it.
DW Oh yeah?
EM Yes.
DW Is that a farm?
EM It's a small farm.
DW A small farm? What was the crop that your parents and grandparents grew?
EM Well, I know my grandfather had a tomato-canning house right along Rt. 136. I guess they raised them. I don't remember too much what they raised, but I guess corn and tomatoes and things like that.
DW And was it Gorrell's Canning House?
EM Yes.
DW That was the name of it?
EM Yes.
DW What years did that operate?
EM I think it might have been before I was born, because I don't remember it operating.
DW Oh, you don't?
EM No. I remember the canning house being there, but I don't remember it operating, because my mother always said that she and daddy worked in it. And that was back before 1924.
DW So your parents would have been born around the turn of the century, so your grandfather would have been living in the late 1800's.
EM That's right and my father was born before the 1900's. I use to have it figured out, but I haven't done it lately.
DW So the canning house was operational just after the turn of the century.
EM That's right.
DW And where did you go to school?
EM I went to Churchville, a one-room school in Churchville for the first grade and then the second through the seventh, the new school, (it was new to us) on Rt. 155. And then I went to Bel Air High School.
DW And was that first school called Jefferson?
EM No, it was Churchville Elementary.
DW The one you went to the first grade in? That was still called Churchville?
EM Yes.
DW Where was that located?
EM Well, it's now where the Churchville Presbyterian Church has a building. And I think Jefferson was down Carson's Run.
DW Yes, it was. But I didn't realize that…
EM That is was in Churchville. That one in Churchville was two-room. It had one through maybe four and then five, six and seven in the other room. There were two rooms to it.
DW That's interesting.
EM You know we were in with other classes.
DW Sure. How far up Rt. 136 was the home place? Was it on the north side of Churchville?
EM No, it' on this side.
DW Oh, it's on the south side of Churchville, between here and Churchville.
EM I'd say a mile and a half, maybe.
DW O.k.
EM I'm not very good with miles. [Laughter]
DW That's o.k. And when you were young, what did you do for entertainment on the farm?
EM There wasn't much to do. At first we didn't even have a car, so we mostly stayed home. Of course we went to church on Sunday, and I went to visit my cousins and things like that, but we didn't get too far without a car. And I remember when we finally did get a car; my father and his brother owned a car together. And then we had to set aside certain nights a week to have the car. [Laughter]
DW That's very good. Did you have games that you played to entertain yourself?
EM I don't remember. I was an only child, so that's why I went to my cousins' so much. And they lived in Churchville, so I had to walk up there.
DW Were your mother and father also farmers, as well as your grandparents?
EM My father was from 1939 until he got sick and he couldn't farm any longer. So then he went to work in Aberdeen.
DW What do you remember about the schoolhouses? Do you remember your teachers?
EM Yes. Do you want me to?
DW Do you have names?
EM Yes, my first grade was Miss Hayes and the second one was Mrs. Hacket. The third I'm lost on, I can't remember.
DW That's o.k.
EM Do you want me to go on?
DW If you can remember more.
EM And the fourth was Sue Stevenson. The fifth was Laura Hawkins and the sixth was Marie Kelly, and the seventh was Mr. Hacket. That's as far as the Churchville School went.
DW So the new school in Churchville was a multi grade school because it had multi teachers.
EM Yes, it started in the second grade and then each grade had a room.
DW Oh, o.k. So that was a big change from a two-room.
EM Oh yes, very much.
DW How about when you got a little older as a teenager. Did you start to find more things to entertain you?
EM Yes, we went to ballgames in Aberdeen. I think it was softball, and of course I went to school functions. I went to Bel Air High School.
DW Which building was Bel Air High School in at that time?
EM The one on Gordon Street.
DW The one that the Administration just abandoned?
EM No, the one next to it. That was the elementary school, the one that they abandoned, wasn't it?
DW You know I honestly don't know.
EM I think there was an elementary school and then there was a high school. And I think the Board of Education took the elementary school over. I can't be real sure, but I think that's what it was. And I don't know what that building is now, that other building, if it's even still there. It's been a long time since I've been up there. [Laughter]
DW Well, how did you meet your husband?
EM I knew him all my life. And I was friendly with his sister, ran around with his sister. And then later he starting dating me, and that was it. [Laughter] And that's a picture of him up there.
DW Was his family from around here?
EM Right up Snake Lane.
DW Right up Snake Lane.
EM That's why we lived here. He never wanted to leave Snake Lane.
DW And his grandparents and such were from the county?
EM Oh yes.
DW I see that you got married at Smith Chapel.
EM Yes.
DW That's on Route 22, Churchville Road.
EM That's right.
DW Do you know any of the history of that church?
EM I know Smith Chapel and Calvary, where I go and Cokesbury were all on one circuit. The preacher had three churches. And that's about all I know about it. And then in later years, Smith's Chapel wanted to go on their own, so now its just Calvary and Cokesbury. Do you know where Cokesbury is?
DW Abingdon, I believe.
EM That's right.
DW O.k.
EM I don't mean to be questioning you, but I just wanted you to be sure because our minister still has the service.
DW Oh, that's interesting.
EM And it's a lady minister.
DW Do you know any of the history of Calvary Church? Like when it was built.
EM I should know, but I can't remember the dates now. But I know that the older people built it. And it's a beautiful stone church and I always marveled at the big stone that were up high in the church. How they got them up there with no machinery or anything, you know what I mean.
DW Sure.
EM And it's pretty. It's a pretty, old church. I guess it was in the 18 something.
DW When you went to Bel Air High School, what was your transportation there?
EM My uncle worked in a bank in Bel Air and I rode to Bel Air with him and then walked back to the school and came back to the bank in the evening and rode with him.
DW Was that by choice or was there bus transportation available?
EM There was bus transportation, but my parents thought… Well, my uncle always said he had taken his daughter to Bel Air and he would take me to save the money, because you had to pay for bus fare then.
DW So it wasn't public transportation.
EM No, you paid. And you see the car my uncle drove, was our car too. [Laughs] You know the one I was telling you about. So he took his daughter, but she graduated a year before I went into the high school. So, he took her and then he took me. He took other riders but he always saved a place for me.
DW I see that you worked at the Aberdeen Proving Ground.
EM Yes, during the war they were calling for help. So I went down and helped. In the meantime I had gone down to a secretarial school in Baltimore for six months. And they wanted me to work in a lawyer's office in Baltimore. And the Proving Ground was calling for help, so I went down there and took a test and passed it. I got a job and worked there until I got married in 1947.
DW Do you remember anything about that time period? You know, rationing.
EM Rationing? Yes, I think gas was rationed and butter. If you bought a pound of butter, you got the coloring thing in with the butter. And then you had to mix the butter up [Laughter] with the yellow stuff. That's the way we had butter.
DW So the butter was basically clear?
EM Yes. If you wanted to eat it that way, you could, but my mother always mixed it up.
DW Did it change the taste or just the looks?
EM No, just the looks. It keeps the butter yellow.
DW Wow, I never heard that before.
EM Oh, haven't you? Well, that's one thing I do remember about the rationing, because I never liked to work the butter.
DW Anything else about the Proving Ground? Were you working someplace where they had, I don't know, there was a big computer there, for instance.
EM No.
DW No?
EM No computers then. I worked in the firing records section. When the men did firing, they wrote down all their statistics and then we typed them up. The transportation into the Proving Ground was a little train. It started at the Pennsylvania Railroad track and ran into the Proving Ground. A lot of people were from Aberdeen and I rode it from Aberdeen. I rode to Aberdeen with my father because he worked down there then. I rode that train in and then I rode it out in the evening and then met my father to come home.
DW What did your dad do on the Proving Ground?
EM He wasn't on the Proving Ground. He worked for an oil company in Aberdeen.
DW Oh, o.k. Was that an oil company that's still in business?
EM Well, it was Morgan's and now it's Farrell's, Farrell Oil Company. I know you've seen the trucks probably on the road.
DW Yes mam.
EM It's located in Aberdeen now. But daddy was a bookkeeper at Morgan's. And Mr. Morgan just died a few months ago, and he was in his nineties.
DW Oh, wow. Now when you were an adult, and you were looking for entertainment, did Churchville have entertainment or did you have to go to Aberdeen or Bel Air for that?
EM We went to the movies either in Bel Air, Aberdeen, or Havre de Grace. And then there was that drive-in movie there in Churchville, but I don't know when that came here. But we didn't go to that too often.
DW I think that was called the Big "M", wasn't it?
EM The little restaurant was, and the drive-in was right behind it.
DW Did that always have the same name that you know of?
EM Yes.
DW After the war was over, did you continue to work at Aberdeen?
EM No, I left. The war was over in '45, wasn't it? Anyway, I worked there until '47. And then I was engaged to be married, and my husband-to-be didn't want me to work, so I quit. And we lived up the road here about a half a mile and we had two girls. 1950 and '53 they were born and in '53 we moved down here. So, that's as far as I've gone.
DW And this is a farm?
EM A part of his farm is up the road too because his father left it to him. We have both places. And the little place up on Route 136, I still have it.
DW And what kind of farming did you do here?
EM Well when we first moved down here, we raised chickens and sold eggs. And we had strawberries and raspberries and then of course he planted tomatoes and corn. And then in later years, he planted soybean. And that is what my son-in-law is still doing. But we don't have the berries or anything any more, or the chickens. But when my husband got sick, he had caught something. Doug worked at the Proving Ground and when he retired, he took over here. And he lives in Pennsylvania, but he comes down here every day. It's not too far; it's in Stewartstown.
DW Sure.
EM It's not too far up there.
DW How about other things in the area? Let's see, we're not too far from Aldino. They have an airport.
EM That's right.
DW Did you use to see lots of airplanes coming and going?
EM Not too many. We use to hear them from the Proving Ground, but they don't have too many down there now, I don't think. We hear more helicopters than anything else here. And then we have quarry. Did you hear that quarry working?
DW Oh yes.
EM Well we have, that is very loud sometimes. About two or three days a week they blast and they do a lot of blasting and this house shakes pretty hard. But so far it's still here. I think it's over a hundred years old.
DW This house?
EM Yes. I know it is. The dates are imprinted in some steps, but I think the steps are back under here now, because we built that room on. And then you asked me about entertainment. Of course we all went to church and we had activities at the church that we attended.
DW So did you farm for the rest of your life? Did you ever go back to work?
EM Oh yes, I worked at Walter G. Coale in Churchville for eighteen years. I started in 1968 and finished in 1986. I worked as a bookkeeper and thoroughly enjoyed it.
DW Well good. That's a very old business in the community.
EM Yes it is. In fact they were my cousins. And they wanted me to come to work for them but I didn't want to go to work until my girls were old enough to take care of themselves. So I went to work when Peggy went to college. I wanted to help her out a little, so that is what I did.
DW I saw that on your write-up. I see that that business is more than a hundred years old.
EM Yes it is.
DW What was that back in the old days?
EM It was a grocery store and a farm business, farm machinery.
DW O.k., so they still sell tractors today.
EM Yes, they still sell farm machinery and industrial machinery. And the last one of the Coale's is now in an assistant living home and she is my first cousin and I still keep in touch with her, of course.
DW How about other old businesses in the area? Were they're mills or creameries or anything like that that you remember?
EM There was a creamery in Churchville when I went to elementary school because we went over there one day to see how it worked. But of course that closed a good while ago. And there was a mill, well there still is a mill on Route 136. But I don't think they have too much business except for cat food and all that kind of thing. Because the cow business is done around here.
DW It was a ground mill?
EM You took your things to the mill, and they ground it. I mean my husband use to take corn, barley [Interviewee deletes: and chicken feed] up there to have it ground. And then they added the nutrients with it. And that's been since 1953, I mean since then he took it up there. But now Doug still stops there and buys things, but it's just small things. They use to have fertilizer and they gave that up too. Now we get our fertilizer at Whiteford.
DW Oh yes.
EM They deliver it to you, because he has already spread a good bit this year. And then there's a country store, did you see it right out here at the end of the road?
DW No mam, I did not notice it.
EM Well, there is a small store and she just sells milk and all kinds of things. And then she sells knitting supplies, craft supplies and things like that.
DW Has that always been a store?
EM Yes.
DW For as long as you remember?
EM Yes. I remember one time my husband said it burned down. Everybody got upset because everybody dealt there, you know. But they rebuilt it and then people have taken it over during the last few years. A man by the name of Dennis Caudill owns it now, he and his wife. And then of course I was talking about the quarry.
DW What kind of a quarry is that, do you know?
EM Stone.
DW Just a stone quarry.
EM And they're blasting to get more stone out. I think there is stone under this house, the way it shakes. [Laughter] And they always said it was a ridge of stone through here. And if you look behind these houses across the road, there's a great big berm that they had built so people can't see down in that quarry. But that's just been recently. And I know people move here and then they complain about the quarry, but they knew it before they moved.
DW Sure.
EM My husband never fussed about the quarry. He said they did us some good deeds, which they did because one time they wanted to build a trailer park out here along the corner of Snake Lane and Route 136. So the quarry bought the land so they couldn't build the trailer park.
DW How long has the quarry been there?
EM It came there in the 1930's because I remember we got electricity down Route 136 when the quarry was coming. That was in the 1930's, my mother use to say. I remember it too partly.
DW Sure.
EM Because we had to plant.
DW How about a phone. Do you remember when you got a telephone?
EM Yes, we got a phone in 1939.
DW So that was after electricity.
EM Yes, because we didn't have a phone where we lived, and when we moved to the house where I lived in last, up there, there was a phone there and we just kept it. My mother liked the phone. We lived in a little house next door to the big house and whenever she had to make a phone call, she had to go down to the big house. And she had a couple of sisters in Churchville that she wanted to talk to every now and then, and that's what she would do. It wasn't bad and it was an old phone, you know those boxes with a phone in it?
DW Crank?
EM Crank kind, that's right.
DW And so you had an operator.
EM Yes, that's right you got the operator to get your number.
DW Was that somebody that you all knew well?
EM Yes, everybody knew the operator.
DW What was her name?
EM Well one of them was Hilda Scott and then my husband's sister was one of them, Dora Mitchell. That's the only two I remember.
DW And do you remember where that telephone office was?
EM Yes, it was in a big house. Do you know where Doctor Street's veterinary place is now?
DW No, I don't.
EM Well, it's up there in Churchville to the left, and then the house was beyond it, but they took the house down.
DW Sure.
EM I remember going in there because when I went to visit my cousin, Margaret Coale, we would over to the telephone exchange because she knew the operators. We watched how they worked it and everything, sticking the plugs in the wall and all that. Yes, that's what we did.
DW Hatch boards.
EM I thought that was real smart, to know how to do that. [Laughter] Now we carry the phone around with us.
DW Yes mam.
EM That's right, a lot of changes.
DW And we always like to discuss those. Certainly in your eighty some years, you've probably seen a lot of good changes and a lot of bad.
EM Yes I have.
DW How about things for the better?
EM Well, I think they're all in a way for the better, especially the cell phones. I don't know much about them. I don't have a cell phone, but my girls do. And they're very handy, too. And I like the T.V., of course. That's what keeps me company. And I still use the radio now and then. If I can't get to church on Sunday because it's early in the morning and I just can't get going that early. So I listen to Oak Grove Service on Sunday. Do you know where Oak Grove is?
DW Close to the college, isn't it?
EM Yes, right there at Schuck's corner, across from McDonald's.
DW Do you remember your first radio?
EM Yes, I do. A man that was a friend of one of my aunt's brought us a radio that I think he had built in Baltimore and he brought it out to us. And then we had a Gloritone, that was the one we bought, but I can't remember what year it would have been. I was pretty young and I would sit close to them to hear them.
DW Now was this before electricity or after?
EM Before. Yes, I remember when electricity was put in our house. We still lived in that little house that I was talking about so that was before 1939.
DW O.k.
EM We moved down into the other one in '39.
DW How about changes in the county that you don't care for?
EM Well, some of them I don't understand but they're all right. I mean you have to go forward with things. I know when they started talking about land preservation, you know, agriculture. My husband was all for it. We have all of our land in the agricultural preservation.
DW That's great.
EM He always said he didn't want houses planted on his farm. [Laughter] So that's why I still have it. I guess I really don't know how long it lasts, but I know it's the rest of my life, but I don't know how much longer. The girls and their husbands know what to do with it. I know we had to go to a lot of council meetings to make sure everything was all right when we put it in the preservation.
DW Sure.
EM We put the farm up the road in first and that was with the state. But then we wanted to do this one down here and we did it with the county, which was a better deal. They pay you so much each year for twenty years. So I'm still getting money from the county for this land.
DW Wonderful.
EM It is good. [Laughter] It helps keep the farm going.
DW Yes mam. Well, anything else you'd like to tell us about life in the earlier years, or any memories?
EM I can't think of too many, we just didn't go a whole lot, you know. Well, in the first place we didn't have the money. That's always the first thing, I guess. As the years went on, we got into better shape, you know and we could do things. I was never one to run around a whole lot, but I did like to go to the movies and things like that. Of course, my husband was a farmer and he sort of stuck to home and he took care of his parents until they passed away. I think one of them died in 1962 and the other one in '67. My parents died in '66 and '87. My father died in '87. He was in a nursing home for a year and a half in Cecil County and I had to run over there pretty often to see him.
DW You mentioned the movies a couple of times, do you remember the movies that you enjoyed the most?
EM Yes, Gone with the Wind.
DW Oh yeah?
EM I went to Baltimore to see that and I was so tickled. It was at the Hippodrome, I think. I went with my aunt and uncle and my cousin. When my aunt was walking down the aisle, she said I just feel like I'm going to the opera.
DW [Laughs]
EM I can remember that and I tell my cousin that every once in a while. She laughs and says, "yes I remember that too". So that shows we didn't get to Baltimore too often back then. But we did have people that lived in Baltimore, aunts and uncles, and my daddy went there pretty often to see them. I love those birds and they sing every day for me. When I moved down here, there weren't too many birds. And this place they were singing early in the morning and I told my husband I was glad that they moved here. But things have to go on and I lost him in 2000. He was a very good husband.
DW You are very lucky and it sounds like you had a very nice life.
EM I did.
DW Good.
EM I didn't go far and I stayed in my hometown. And everybody says don't talk about anybody in Churchville, cause they're all related. [Laughter] So, I try not to say anything about them. Of course you do know your neighbors.
DW Sure, especially when you've been here for eighty some years.
EM I know there is a new family that moved over here the year my husband died and he comes over here once in a while and ask me things about my husband. He says I wish I could have moved here before he passed away. I said well I wish you could have too, but that didn't work out. My husband liked to talk a lot and he would go to different farmers every morning and see how they were doing and tell them how he was doing, and then he would come back and go to work. That was his routine. But that was all right. They all exchanged their tales, you know. I remember he always went down to the Adams. Do you know them?
DW No mam.
EM Well they were farmers but they kind of quit some of it now, but he always went there. He talked to a couple of young fellows. One was Brad Milton and the other one was Tommy Harman and he told them a lot about produce farming, because that's what my husband did for many years. Now they each have a produce stand. Harman's was up on Route 22 and Brad's is right up here on Asbury Road. So, some of his knowledge is going on.
DW Wonderful.
EM That's about it as far as I know.
DW O.k. Well, we just try to collect as much Harford County history as we can.
EM Yes, I know.
DW I appreciate your time.
EM Well, I don't know whether I knew too much.
DW Well, you helped locate the businesses and certainly the first school. That was new information.
EM Yes, I knew them. Most of the times I walked to school and that Trinity Road, if the snow came, they plowed one side of it. I had to walk up there from Churchville to there and I always had to get up on the snow banks when a car would go by. And I always went to school in snowy time with wet legs. I had boots but they didn't come to the knees and sometimes the snowdrifts were that deep.
DW Yes mam.
EM So those are things to remember. And the stores in Churchville, now I was talking about Coale's, they weren't always on that corner. They had a store up the road where the Churchville Presbyterian Church had [is now]. It was a long, narrow building and they lived up there and they had the store downstairs. They moved to the corner…
[Side 2 of tape]
DW O.k., we've gone backwards in time and there's nothing wrong with that.
EM Well, it just came to me that they were in another store and they moved down on the corner. They had the new building in there, so they built a parts department and then they had their grocery store and then they lived in part of the downstairs and had the whole upstairs to live. There were three of those Coales, Mitchell, Francis and Margaret and Margaret is the one who is still there. She was a Living Treasure about a year or so back. She got her knowledge in there, too.
DW Very good.
EM She told me that somebody came in and interviewed her.
DW I don't remember doing hers so it must have been somebody else.
EM Well, it was October of '04 because she's been out there over a year in the home. Before she went into the home, she was chosen. And of course Mitchell and Francis are deceased. She still owns that property. [missing dialogue] She still has her senses and she knows all that's going on out there. I don't think there is anything else I should tell you.
DW O.k. That's fine. We always like to give you a little time to think.
EM Well, that's what I'm doing. I did think about it what I was going to tell you. Anyway, I guess that's it.
DW I'm going to say thank you very much for your time and appreciated hearing your story and I appreciated the new information you've given us.